Bologna sandwiches and corporate mazes

Did your kids crave bologna sandwiches? I think one of mine did, and I was scornful, even though they’re a standard on the local deli menu. To me, bologna was scraps of leftover meat pressed into a roll and sliced. Guess what I had for lunch today? A bologna club sandwich on a kolache bun.

Fixture, a local trendy restaurant (translate: lots of kale), has offered the sandwich since its opening, and I routinely passed it by. But today the qualifier, “all beef bologna,” got me, and I ordered it. The sandwich was bologna-heavy to say the least—a generous portion. But it was good—Havarti, thinly sliced turkey, lettuce and tomato, no bacon. I was over-served and so full after lunch.

We ate on the patio and I enjoyed it thoroughly. Windy today but pleasant. The gravel path about did me in. At one point, I thought I was going to pitch forward on my walker because the wheels caught in the gravel, but I caught myself. Carol, who was with me, said she thought she hadn’t been watching carefully, but at this point I can’t expect my friends to watch my back every minute. Still, I may not try gravel again. Jordan’s comment, “I don’t think that was very smart.”

I fought the corporate bear today and would like to give a shout-out to the corporations who were easy to deal with, their telephone reps pleasant and polite: Van’s shoes (they will track down the pair I returned and see about getting me a refund); Target (they sent me a new gift certificate for the one that went astray); OpenSky promised to track down my order and get back to me; same thing with Heathen’s Hoard (don’t you love the name?) where I ordered a “perfect” gift for a grandson whose birthday is coming up; Frost Bank helped me figure out why South Side Rotary hadn’t gotten my check for the flags they put at the driveway on national holidays. The kinds of phone calls that usually take hours and involve lots of “Please hold” didn’t happen. What a great day.

And I wrote over 800 words on the revised novella—not much but baby steps; read 100 pages in the novel I’ve been avoiding; had a lively email discussion with my writing group and got lots of advice about memoir. I discovered I was again doing something I do too often—apologizing for myself. Some of those ladies have written memoirs about the death of a loved one, a bitter divorce, and other traumatic events—I thought my surgery paled in comparison, but they assured me that surviving severe pain is in itself an accomplishment, and many women my age will want to hear about my journey through pain, hallucinations, and surgery plus my lifelong battle with anxiety. The other bit of repeated advice was a memoir takes time. It needs to simmer and sit in your brain, and your understanding of events changes as you write and gain distance So I’m making notes and going on with other projects.

A good day. I’ll forgive the friend who completely messed up her calendar and our dinner plans.